Tactile localization of the breast, areola, and nipple

  1. Katie H Long
  2. Emily E Fitzgerald
  3. Ev I Berger-Wolf
  4. Amani Fawaz
  5. Stacy T Lindau
  6. Sliman J Bensmaia
  7. Charles M Greenspon  Is a corresponding author
  1. Committee on Computational Neuroscience, University of Chicago, United States
  2. Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, United States
  3. Department of Neuroscience, Middlebury College, United States
  4. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Chicago, United States
  5. Department of Medicine-Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, University of Chicago, United States
  6. Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Chicago, United States
  7. Neuroscience Institute, University of Chicago, United States
3 figures, 4 tables and 1 additional file

Figures

Figure 1 with 1 supplement
Location discrimination.

(A) Example psychometric functions for one subject on the location discrimination task for the hand, back, outer breast, and medial breast (including NAC). Negative values denote test points ‘below’ the reference and the JND indicates the distance at which the subject could reliably (75% trials) locate the stimulus. (B) Distribution of JNDs for each subject at each region. (C) Relationship between the difference in size between the bust and underbust (Δ Bust) and the JND of the lateral breast and (D) medial breast, respectively.

Figure 1—figure supplement 1
Spatial precision across regions.

Relationship between the delta bust (bust – underbust) and the spatial precision (JND) for the (A) hand and (B) back.

Spatial discrimination at the nipple and areola.

(A) Test locations for the quadrant discrimination task. The outer ring represents the areola and the inner ring the nipple. The subject reported location using a number from 1 to 4 progressing clockwise from ‘above’. (B) Proportion correct for participant at each test location. Solid markers indicate participants whose performance was significantly above chance (N=10).

Figure 3 with 1 supplement
Absolute localization of contact events on the breast and back.

(A) Example localization task data for the breast or (B) back of one participant. Gray surface represents scanned torso. Black crosses indicate the true location of each stimulus, purple lines indicate the vector between the stimulus location and reported location, and blue lines indicate the vector between the stimulus location and average reported location across blocks. (C) Reporting error (3D Euclidean distance) as a function of distance across participants for the breast and (D) back. Error indicates mean error for each trial (mean of purple vector length in A, B), bias indicates the error of the average response (blue vectors in A, B), and imprecision is the mean pairwise error between individual responses for each point (distance between the end of purple vectors in A, B). (E) The distribution of angles (2D, no depth axis) between the stimulus location and the reported location (gray) or the difference between said angle and the angle towards the relevant landmark (red) for the breast (nipple) and (F) back (scapula).

Figure 3—figure supplement 1
Tactile localization performance of individual participants.

(A) Mean error for each participant across distances for the back and breast. Dashed line indicates unity. (B) Example 2D responses to localization task for the breast of one participant and the (C) back of another. Black crosses indicate the true location of each stimulus, purple lines indicate the vector between the stimulus location and reported location, and blue lines indicate the vector between the stimulus location and average reported location across blocks. (D) Cartesian coordinate plot of Figure 3E (breast) where individual participants are represented by lighter colors. (E) Same as (D) but for Figure 3F (back). (F) Unimodal vector strength of individual participants' biases for breast and back. Dashed line indicates unity, dotted line indicates 95th percentile of vector strength from a simulated uniform distribution matched for the number of angles over which vector strength was computed after discretization (N=11).

Tables

Table 1
Linear mixed model for the relationship between distance and error for tactile localizations on the breast.

error=distance + (distance | participant).

ParameterEstimate95% CLDFt-Statisticp-Value
Fixed
Intercept14.65610.547, 18.7652487.02582.044E-11
Distance0.234010.18388, 0.284142489.19371.595E-17
Random
Intercept | Participant5.2612.6706, 10.364
Distance | Participant0.0272190.0036549, 0.20271
Table 2
Linear mixed model for the relationship between distance and error for tactile localizations on the back.

error=distance + (distance | participant).

ParameterEstimate95% CLDFt-Statisticp-Value
Fixed
Intercept49.66841.571, 57.76424812.0839.7547e-27
Distance0.093385–0.013932, 0.20072481.71390.087801
Random
Intercept | Participant10.9345.9341, 20.145
Distance | Participant0.110020.036619, 0.33057
Table 3
Linear mixed model for the relationship between distance and error for tactile localizations on the breast and back.

error=distance + location + (distance x location) + (distance | participant).

ParameterEstimate95% CLDFt-Statisticp-Value
Fixed
Intercept14.6018.3922, 20.8094964.62064.8848e-06
Distance0.234910.13881, 0.331014964.80272.0762e-06
Location34.92729.63, 40.22549612.9542.8993e-33
Distance x Location–0.13876−0.23889,–0.038634496–2.72290.0066996
Random
Intercept | Participant7.94454.5113, 13.99
Distance | Participant0.102850.049394, 0.21416
Table 4
Linear mixed model for the relationship between distance and error for tactile localizations on the breast and back with respect to error type (bias or imprecision).

error=distance + location +error type + (error type x location) + (distance | participant).

ParameterEstimate95% CLDFt-Statisticp-Value
Fixed
Intercept15.29111.301, 19.2819957.52031.2187e-13
Distance0.101330.046744, 0.155929953.64270.00028369
Location29.03426.52, 31.54899522.6635.1594e-92
Error Type–4.0629−6.5756,–1.5503995–3.17310.0015544
Location x Error Type–23.048−26.601,–19.495995–12.7281.7171e-34
Random
Intercept | Participant5.20172.942, 9.1969
Distance | Participant0.0691060.033314, 0.14335

Additional files

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Katie H Long
  2. Emily E Fitzgerald
  3. Ev I Berger-Wolf
  4. Amani Fawaz
  5. Stacy T Lindau
  6. Sliman J Bensmaia
  7. Charles M Greenspon
(2026)
Tactile localization of the breast, areola, and nipple
eLife 14:RP105946.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.105946.4